Guest Column: Reduction in mercury emissions long overdue

It's easy to feel disconnected from the laws and regulations made in our nation's capital, and perhaps even at times to feel a bit skeptical as to whether these laws will actually have any real impact on our daily lives. With the hustle and bustle of work and family, keeping up on what's happening inside the Beltway often falls off the radar. Yet, sometimes Washington has a way of grabbing our attention, which is why there is such a wave of enthusiasm surrounding the president's adoption of the first ever national mercury pollution standards.

Almost nothing else hits as close to home as the air we breathe in our own communities. Thanks to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, mercury emissions from power plants will be reduced by 90 percent; acid gases and other health harming pollutants emitted by coal-fired power plants will also be cut to safeguard public health.

For more than 20 years, unhealthy air toxins from power plants went largely unchecked as big polluters have been fighting against cleaning up their smokestacks ever since Congress first ordered the industry to comply with the Clean Air Act amendments back in 1990. Since then, people have suffered unnecessarily from asthma attacks, heart disease and other illnesses caused and exacerbated by breathing air toxins emitted by coal-fired power plants.

The American Lung Association's Toxic Air report explains that power-plant emissions are responsible for a wide range of health consequences, including irritation to the eyes, skin, and nasal and lung passages (from acid gases); nervous system damage (from heavy metals like mercury); and cancers (from arsenic and dioxins). If we care about the health of our families, friends and neighbors, there can be no argument about the need to reduce these harmful smokestack emissions.

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Every day, respiratory therapists see firsthand how poor air quality impacts their patients. Members of the Pennsylvania Society for Respiratory Care work directly with patients living with chronic respiratory diseases that require ongoing treatment and at times, intensive care and therapy. Pollutants like the ones emitted by coal-fired power plants (mercury, benzene, formaldehyde, acid gases and more) can make even the healthiest person ill. For respiratory patients, breathing these air toxins greatly exacerbates their disease symptoms while also increasing their need for emergency medical care.

We celebrate the long-awaited Mercury and Air Toxics Standard as a significant public health victory and welcome its promise to prevent an estimated 11,000 premature deaths and 130,000 childhood asthma attacks annually. The timely enforcement of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard means that people across the country will be able to breathe easier, and those most vulnerable among us, including people living with asthma, children and older adults, will be finally have relief from the air pollution that has been making them sick. Respiratory therapists dedicated to the care of patients with lung disease are especially heartened by this landmark "D.C. decision" that will translate into cleaner air right here at home.

After waiting for these much-needed clean air protections for more than two decades, the public deserves the full commitment of their federal legislators to not stymie this vital public health protection with any further delays. Our patients are counting on a future with healthy air today.

Eileen M. Censullo is president of the Pennsylvania Society for Respiratory Care in Sellersville, Pa.